


i try to exhale you in pain (like white smoke)

by JamlessGenius



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cutting, Depression, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Blood, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27688336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamlessGenius/pseuds/JamlessGenius
Summary: 5 times nobody sees Zuko cut himself + the 1 time they do
Comments: 3
Kudos: 98





	i try to exhale you in pain (like white smoke)

_1_

He’s disgusting. A child of flame destroyed by fire and he’s awful-

_ Uncle looked away. _

What is he? What is he but something to destroy? Why is it never him? 

He glances at his arm. He remembers cuts and scrapes left by what seemed to be everyone but him. What if he did it? What if he chose to drag that dao across his arm and leave a scratch, and another? What if he painted himself with the crimson red that fire provides? What if he is the one who hurts? It’s a harmless and pathetic attempt but- 

But what if? 

He doesn’t even realize how deeply his finger nail is digging as he drags it across his leg. It burns without flame and oh-

A little pink ownership of himself.

It’s beautiful, and he draws another, and another, before his leg is covered in a web of scrapes he made. Crisscrossing pinks and white and it’s different. In those lines he sees dragon scales, he sees power. He also sees how pathetically weak those scratches are.

Zuko frowns at his nail.

It’s not sharp enough. Then again, as he mulls over that fateful Agni Kai, neither is he. He pulls out his dagger. Something he will never leave behind.

“Never Give Up Without A Fight.”

Zuko is fighting. For the first time in his life, he’s fighting.

Let them look away from the abandoned child of Agni. Let them look away as he takes back himself. 

Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to go home when he manages to.

_2_

He’s reckless. He’s reckless and death means nothing in the face of his goals.

Death does not scare him.

The truth is, it’s a better alternative. It’s better than the aching disappointment that father doesn’t want him- that he’s a failure. He’s not worth the line of Sozin.

Failure is worse than death.

So Zuko dives, under the ice and through as his skin and chi scream in protest. As his own body rebels against his goals. He is a firebender. The scabs on his thighs press against the currents of water and it pushes him back-

No. 

No more.

He will active in this. He will achieve this. If his lungs fill with water and he drowns, he’d prefer it. 

He doesn’t care about the circumstances, if he is a failure to his line then he can die. But he will not turn his back on his people. He calls out to the avatar, feeling the way his toe is numb. He can’t reach it with his chi. At this rate, it’s going to fall off. He’s done this to himself.

Zuko doesn’t really care.

That stupid toe- he yanks off the nail of it and it burns- He lets it burn. It’s a punishment in the way the slice that cut off his phoenix tail was not. He can cause pain. Even if it’s only to himself.

It doesn’t matter. That burning means nothing when he himself is nothing but a coward.

He lets himself go with uncle (uncle who looked away- uncle, the only person alive who cares about him- his flesh and blood- uncle, uncle,  uncle -)

_3_ 

It’s a deep sort of shame that hounds his steps. What are they now? What is he now?

All he really has is the marks on him to tell his story. And he didn’t even make the ones that lasted.

What if he did? The stray thought occurred to him like a bolt of lightning. What if he scarred himself? A little line across his finger, maybe. It would be so easy. In fact, he has a broken teacup right there. The shattered porcelain is rimmed with the same ugly green of everything else in the Earth Kingdom. Rimmed in an unfitting green, like him. Glazed and fired by someone else into something it is not, like him.

Uncle is out, anyway.

What’s the harm in making the body of Lee his own? What’s the harm in any of it?

It’s a practiced movement, the way he slowly and methodically slices beneath his pathetic skin with a dainty shard of teacup. There is nothing special about this teacup, in truth. But maybe there’s nothing special about him. It’s nothing new, the way he lets his blood trace ruby teardrops across the paleness of his skin. That deep of red is no longer the color of his burn or the red of the draperies of the Agni Kai hall that haunts his nightmares. It’s him- he is Zuko and this is his blood. Something, at least, has not changed. In himself, he owns himself.

At least for today. In this moment, he is not Lee, a peasant boy with a scar and a story to tell. He is not Prince Zuko, heir to the throne. He is Zuko, firebender and his own person.

And strangely enough, it’s a comforting notion to itself. His honor would never belong to him again, even if he regained it. It would forever be cut off of him. 

He didn’t make that slash. He didn’t make the scar marring his face. He is, well and truly, a powerless speck of ash to be blown through the sky. 

_4_

Now, he truly is a traitor. Uncle is gone and he’s home but-

But, but, but.

He’s not happy. He’s not happy at all and he knows that he’s ruined so much. He’s selfish and the marks on his skin tell him that whenever he looks at them. 

The minute he leaves, he looks at the marks and adds one. Long and severing, deep enough to bleed heavily. 

This is his freedom. This is his rebellion. This is his oath to right the wrongs. 

He will not betray the ones who matter again. He will let himself be the tool he needs to be, a prince of a broken crown no longer. He owned none of it before and he will own none of it after, unworthy as he is to bear the crown. 

The gash sits like a badge as it heals. He feels his blood dry and the stickiness tells him that he’s done something right.

He’s never quite marked himself so heavily, but each burn as his skin opens is Zuko. He is himself and this is his control. 

Some nights, he wakes up screaming and begging his father. When he wakes to see the scar across his hand, there is no more desperation. 

It blazes into angry flames. 

His own vengeance means little, in the end. He would be avenged by this war ending, by the soldiers returning home to love within the fire nation that he was never entitled to. To bring back the light in every home that his family snuffed with their conquest. For people not to fear or revere fire, but to appreciate it.

The edges of the flames he sees on his path almost echo the red of blood.

_5_

He’s fucked up. He’s fucked up and they hate him. He’s shaking and he’s angry but more than anyone- he’s angry at himself.

This time, it’s not control, but a response. All he does is hurt and he will not let himself go with retribution. 

To do this here is risky, at the chances of getting caught. Zuko can’t find it in himself to care.

He digs a nail in, remembering that fascinated curiosity that faded to reverence that is fading to a hardened, adult understanding. This is his sin and this is the punishment he must mete out.

For all Zuko is, he is prepared to be a means to an end. If he must, he’ll be their 41st division. Because for all he loves them, the scars remind him. Because now that he owns himself, he’s worth less than they are. The earthbender is in pain that he caused, he’s damaged her sight the way Ozai damaged him. If it wasn’t such a risk of being caught, he’d slice his scar in penance. 

He settles for burning his own skin.

_+1_

Aang is not sure why Suki sent out such a desperate letter. There were drying tears smudging the ink.

It had been blunt. A cutting demand that he come and he bring Katara with him.

He sees the reason why when he bursts into the room.

Firelord Zuko. Sifu Hotman. Zuko.

Trailing up his arm is a slash dripping brilliant red blood. The color of berries and paint and death. The way he’s been hurt, nobody else could have done it.

Spirit disease.

He knows what this is. 

How long- 

How long has Zuko suffered alone? How many mysterious scars have they seen and not questioned? Could they have saved him? 

Zuko hadn’t wanted the throne. He’d wanted to save and fix the lives of the fire nation. But once that was over-

Aang can’t feel his body.

His vision whites out.


End file.
